Eldorado

The beautiful Belgian landscapes, whether the plains (I guess those were shot in Flanders) or the hilly country side of the Ardennes, are clearly the main attraction of this film. It's also rare to see the run-down mostly red brick houses typical to Wallonia in a movie.

When it comes to the plot, there are quirky moments which are worth a chuckle or a fright, but in general this film is rather long-winded, making it boring at a few instances even if it only has a run-time of roughly 80 minutes.

Nonetheless it has its touching moments, especially when both protagonists visit one of them's parents and the end scenes.

But in the end Eldorado is not a film I would recommend, except to people who are fond of Belgium.

A middle-aged man returns to his home in rural Belgium to find that it has been broken into, with a stranger hiding under his bed. He initially threatens the intruder, who refuses to come out, with violence and calling the police. When the stranger eventually emerges, he is found to be a scared young man purportedly seeking to return to his parents after overcoming a heroin addiction. His parents live on the other side of the country, and the older man offers to give him a lift.

The ensuing road movie begins conventionally, with gradual bonding and chance meetings with various eccentrics as the Belgian landscape offers some choice cinematography opportunities. Although these initial encounters are mildly engaging and occasionally humorous, three incidents in the latter half challenge the low-key nature of the preceding action. This change of direction lends the film a more serious weight and a dark, meaty substance in place of a morality tale.

An impressive piece of work, especially given the short running time (around 80 minutes). The older man is played by Bouli Lanners, who also writes and directs.

This is a humorous film with a serious subtext. Bouli Lanners knows better than to befriend a young burglar he finds in his house, but, even though he's convinced the kid is a drug addict, he does anyway. He's got his reasons, which come out slowly. The two set off on a cross country (Belgium that is) road trip and meet some strange characters, including an elderly nudist, a psychic, and others. Each scene contains an interesting encounter, and the countryside is filmed beautifully. Bouli's behavior seems irrational throughout, but at the end you piece together why he does what he does, and you reread the film in your head.

A little trivia. Bouli Lanners played a role in Asterix at the Olympics, alongside Alain Delon. Apparently Delon was such a jerk that Lanners stole his folding chair on the set. Well, the chair shows up here where it belongs to the ridiculous old nudist who sits in it throughout his scenes. Apparently Alain is none too happy...

Eldorado starts out as a quirky, low key comedy along the lines of Jim Jarmusch (Night on Earth, Down by Law). Perhaps slow and uneventful by some people's tastes, but pretty humorous if you let the absurdity soak in. The story is about a couple of unlikely travel buddies who embark on a cross-Belgian roadtrip, alternately showcasing the gorgeous countryside and the bizarre characters they encounter.

But as you can guess by my title, for me and I believe for most American audiences, the film was upstaged by an unsettling sideplot about a dog being brutally killed. After watching the movie, I immediately googled the director trying to figure out why he would include this terrible juxtaposition in an otherwise playful film. You're not going to like what I learned.

According to an interview, this director's hallmark is to use a dog in his films. In this case he decided to use a dead dog. It was not intended as a major plot point but merely to express the contradictions in humans. In the scene, one character says and does something absolutely vile, but (as the director says in the interview) we are supposed to excuse him because he later shows that he is just human because he had a dog once.

Um. No. Perhaps blame it on a trans-Atlantic difference in how we love our dogs, but most civilized Americans will not, under any circumstances, excuse or condone the idea of a dog being tied up, thrown over a bridge, and left to die whimpering.

That's what my title refers to. Immediately I was so sickened by that scene and the characters' blasé reactions, that I lost all respect and empathy for the lot of them. Ultimately, after watching an 85 minute film, I was left wondering why I should care about anyone in the story. Of course this was not the director's intent; I suppose we were supposed to take the jarring scene more in stride. If you're a dog lover, or even a casual fan of animals, I guarantee you'll be very put off by the unnecessary brutality of that scene. I sure hope they didn't use a real dog (though it looked like they did).

A man who imports used American cars to Belgium catches a young burglar who he begrudgingly befriends...we find out later that he had recently lost his younger brother to drugs and feels some rapport.

This movie is hard to rate...if it hadn't gone on so long it would have gotten a 10---but the last 30 minutes are kind of out of gas.

Let me say one thing about the dog scene...it took a lot of daring for the director to do this. However, animal cruelty no matter how it is twisted in unfunny.

The essence of this kind of movie is bizarreness turned into comedy. If you find the idea of importing used American cars amusing you will understand this movie. I love these things and this one was done well. Except as I mentioned the dog scene.

The movie used digital techniques for the sky and other scenery but it was beautiful anyway. Computers mean some really beautiful landscapes.

In the end? Very good especially the nudist scene and others. Mentally sublimate if you can the dog part because the rest of it is really spot on.

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